


out there on the static

by Novelsinourheads



Series: we heed the call [2]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29916903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novelsinourheads/pseuds/Novelsinourheads
Summary: When Edric looks down and sees that his jersey has switched from a dark red to a light blue, his first thought isn’t about the team, or Chicago, or even himself.(It’s about the mezuzah that hangs on his door at the firehouse, the one that Spoon had gotten that matched the one back in their universe.)orEdric has to learn how to live a new life again.
Series: we heed the call [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200800
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	out there on the static

**Author's Note:**

> hello this fic is brought to you by 3 hours of sleep wednesday night, copious amounts of chronic pain projection and crying, and the absolute hell that was s12 for the firefighters.
> 
> in all seriousness, i knew immediately when edric got feedbacked i'd have to write something about it. this boy means so much to me and i've come to realize that's because i've put a very real part of my heart and soul into him without even meaning to. blaseball _is_ a horror game and this past week was a pretty harsh reminder of that for the firefighters. i have so much i could say about it but for now i'll leave you with this. edric's story isn't done, josh's story isn't done, declan's story isn't done.
> 
> thank you to robbie for the beta! 
> 
> cws for smoking and grief

When Edric looks down and sees that his jersey has switched from a dark red to a light blue, his first thought isn’t about the team, or Chicago, or even himself.

(It’s about the mezuzah that hangs on his door at the firehouse, the one that Spoon had gotten that matched the one back in their universe.)

(It’s about his sisters, who he’s finally, _finally_ started to get back on good ground with. Even with all the years of siesta, it feels like he’s just gotten them back and now-) 

(It’s about Atlas, who he hasn’t thought about properly in many years, not since she entered the shadows and yet; he remembers what it was like to be newly 21 and sidled up side by side in the blaze of a fire they set together…)

(It’s about Declan, who is so tired now, tired and exhausted and in pain. He was supposed to help, supposed to be able to help and yet-)

Okay, so maybe it’s about all those things.

\------

The bus ride back to Breckenridge is awkward, though not for lack of trying on anyone’s part. But the Jazz Hands are smarting from this just as much as he is, and he can already feel his walls that he’s spent almost a decade trying to tear down coming straight back up. He’s just so tired, the kind of tired he felt when he first got here, but this time, he’s all alone. There’s no Justice by his side, and the look on her face; the horror, the way she gripped his arm in a vice grip and she would never let go, is all that replays in his mind as he leans his head against the shaking glass of the window. Right now, he wants a box of matches in his hand more than anything else in the world.

(That’s a lie. He would like to be back in his bed at the firehouse, with Socks curled on the foot of it. Or in Atlas’s old garden, breathing in the dirt and moisture. But that’s not an option.)

They’ve stopped at a pitstop in the middle of Nebraska now, which he doesn’t realize until everyone around him starts filing off the bus. Some fresh air sounds nice though, and so he forces himself to get up and out of the bus, and finds himself grabbing some cigarettes and a pack of matches from the counter of the gas station and pointedly ignoring the stares coming from his new teammates. 

He’s huddled by the side of the building with a cigarette in one hand and his other in a pocket when someone comes up to him. He knows her, because everyone does. Wyatt Pothos did not escape fame anymore than the rest of the PODs. She’s staring at him, not unkindly, but with a certain level of appraisal that makes him want to crawl out of his skin, like his blood is running burning hot under his skin. 

“So. How are you feeling?”

“Oh, you know.” He grimaces. “About as good as I can, I guess.”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Well, I’ve never lived farther away from Chicago than Charleston in either dimension I’ve been in my entire life and I’m smoking for the first time in 5 years so take your pick, I guess.” He can’t help the way the words come out bitter on his tongue, like the ash from when he burned his first building. “Sorry, I…”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I get it, probably better than some of the others here. You done with that?”

He looks down at the nearly burnt out cigarette and coughs. “Yeah, I am.”

Pothos sits next to him the entire rest of the ride. They don’t talk, but it’s a small comfort.

\------

There’s the scent of the Chicago river in the air as he drifts off to sleep that night, and the taste of smoke on his tongue. He tosses and turns all night, claustrophobic and clammy, unable to sleep in a room so foreign and cold. In that muddled in-between state right as he’s finally drifting off, he thinks he hears Her voice in his ear, faint whispers into nothingness until-

_“It’s okay, my child. You’ll always have a home here, but do not fear what is to come. You will get through it.”_

He wakes up feeling like he hasn’t slept at all, not recognizing where he is for a second. When he finally does, it’s all he can do to repress a sob.

\------

It’s barely even two weeks later when it happens. He hasn't really settled in yet, still tense and bristling at the edges, but when Pothos levels him with a heavy look and tells him to go, he finds himself grabbing the keys out of their hand and in one of the band’s cars before he even realizes. It feels like _that_ drive to Charleston for Morrow’s funeral, sitting alone in silence in Declan’s El Camino, trying not to sob. This time, he’s just numb, moving on auto-pilot and glassy-eyed.

(He remembers telling Josh about that day a year or two after the switch, out in the parking lot as he filled another can with fire and anger and grief; not saying anything, not trying to stop him, just listening. It’s far more than he deserved, he thinks.)

The hours fly by as quickly as the highway, and as he gets closer to the city, the more he fills with a stomach-churning kind of dread. The funeral, the firehouse; all of it is making him sick to think of.

(He can also still remember it; the feeling of the dirt on his shovel and the sound it made as it hit the wood of the casket. As bad as it was, he knew what to expect- he had been to his first funeral at age 9. The process was ingrained in his bones, each step in succession after another; mourning all tied up with a pretty little bow. This isn’t that, not at all, it’s broken and messy and overwhelming, and there’s part of him that’s scared he’s not meant to be there.)

Lou is the first one to find him, staring at him in shock before nearly bowling him over with a hug. Rosa doesn’t look at him, which he can deal with. But Spoon… Spoon is cold and cut off in a way that’s frighteningly familiar, and she just stares at him with Baby on her hip, refusing to even acknowledge his existence beyond that. He knows better than to push her when she’s like this, in a state he knows well enough to recognize the hurt and betrayal running under her stone.

(The last time he saw her like this, he had just dragged them kicking and screaming to another dimension. That’s how he knows it’s bad, because he’s never known pure fury like he had in that moment. He has the cognizance now to recognize it’s probably not (just) him, but it still stings.)

\------

He feels awkward at the funeral, uncomfortable and out of place, like he shouldn’t be there. He doesn’t know if he deserves to be there, because he wasn’t when it happened, wasn’t there to charge the field or even try to stop it. He knows in the depths of his bones that he wouldn’t have looked away, but he didn’t even get the chance.

(It’s hard not to think about Tyreek’s funeral, about the pile of ashes they scattered across the field behind the firehouse and the statue they built, and he knows that whatever they do for Josh, he won’t get to be a part of. Not this time. It hurts.)

Meeting Josh’s replacement is… interesting, but she’s one of the few people willing to stop and talk to him after the service. There’s a distance between him and the team that’s growing by the second, but Gita has no awareness of that, and even if she did, Edric thinks she wouldn’t have the patience. She’s young, no older than his oldest niece, he thinks. Bright and energetic too, words flying a mile a minute. He only manages to stick it out for five minutes before excusing himself; too tired to keep up with everything after driving through the night, and tries to find somewhere to take a nap. His old room has already been taken by Agan, he knows.

(This whole thing is reminding him of his first week in the firehouse of this dimension, the way the halls would twist and turn, making him hunt for where he wanted to go. This feels like that, a test, but he’s got nothing to prove to anyone this time, except maybe himself.)

  
  


\------

Declan’s sitting on the steps behind the firehouse when he goes out to smoke. It’s dusk, the stars just starting to peek out from behind the clouds, with a chill that feels cleansing in his lungs. Declan’s curled up in his biggest hoodie, leaning his head against the railing on the bottom step. 

“You’re going to catch a cold like that.”

Edric let’s his voice carry down the steps, knowing it will startle Declan a little, and it does. He jumps and turns around, catching Edric’s eye just as he’s taking a cigarette out of the pack. 

“I thought you stopped.”

Edric looks down at the lit cigarette and shrugs. “Yeah, well…”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

They sit in the silence for a couple minutes. From up on the stoop he can see just how pale Declan has gotten, illuminated by the yellow waxiness of the street light; the way he’s shivering against the wind.

Declan’s voice is what brings him out: “They’re planning on shadowing me.”

Edric stubs out his smoke, going and sitting down next to Declan. 

“I’m sorry.”

Declan turns to look at him, reading him in a way that only he’s ever managed in the twenty odd years they’ve known each other. In his eyes Edric can see hurt and recognition and a hint of betrayal. He turns back away quickly, refusing to even acknowledge Edric.

“You knew, didn’t you.” It’s not a question, but a statement; one laced with bitterness and hurt.

“I did.”

Neither of them speak, just the sound of cars and crickets between them. The tension is thick in a way he’s only ever experienced with the first Declan he knew, which has him reaching for the scar on his collarbone, still as raw and red as the day he got it from Thomas Dracaena, even over 15 years later. It’s Declan who starts first.

“I get it, you know. I can barely walk some days, or breathe. And it’s scary, I’m so scared. It’s just-” His voice cracks. “It’s just that it still hurts, this idea that I’m just failing the team, that I’m just a failure even ten years later.”

“God no, Dec, that’s not it at all. You’re _not_ a failure, you never were. You’re human and you’ve made some pretty shitty decisions but you’ve learned and grown, and we-” His voice catches in his throat. “ _They_ just are worried about you, that’s all. You deserve to be able to rest, and that’s never going to happen in Blaseball, we all know that. This is just a way for you to be able to rest. The team, they care about you so much, and your worth isn’t defined by what you could do for them. It never was.”

That seems to be all that it takes to push Declan over the edge, and soon he finds himself with two arms wrapped around him as he burrows into his chest. 

(He wishes he could stay here in this moment forever, in this hurt and this grief and confusion, because at least he’s home, with his best friend and ground that’s familiar beneath him. But he can’t.)

\------

(He wakes up on the morning of the election and everything is wrong and everything is right. 

Because Josh is still dead, but he can still hear him sometimes, in the whispers of the winds and the static hum of the radio. 

Because Declan is gone, but he knows he’s with Atlas; not alone, never alone, with someone to keep an eye on him. 

Because Spoon’s still not talking to him, but he knows she’ll come around, because the two of them are intertwined too deep to ever let that go. 

Because Rivers is angry and Lou is hurt and Caleb is confused and Isaac is stone cold rage, but they all still write and cry and call.

Because even though he doesn’t wake up in Chicago, even though he’s desperately alone in a way he hasn’t been in almost two decades, there’s hope. He knows there’s hope, and he’s going to find it.)

  
  



End file.
